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'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.

Juwayriya Adwan, twelve, al-Mawasi

For the past two years since I was last inside a learning environment. Two years since I heard the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and answered questions during my favourite class. Occasionally I still clearly recall the auditory and olfactory sensations: powder from the board, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was bombed soon after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and companions perished.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That early hours, air raid sirens sounded through the corridors. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even she sounded shaky. I remember wishing for a ordinary day; lessons, break time, a poem recital. Instead, that day signaled the conclusion of my previous existence.

The war has taken so much. But the most painful deprivation of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my parents, male relatives and sister in a crowded shelter in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, providing no climate control. We line up for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and privacy doesn’t exist. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I gaze toward the night lights through the gaps of my tent and wonder if my peers see the comparable vista. Some reach out when they are able, saying they miss school and have retained their previous journals; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel ashamed because I’ve misplaced all of mine.

I once aspired to becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I hope for being a reporter – to draft, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it signifies to be a minor in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of anxiety and deprivation, but also courage. Because even here, amid fatality and debris, our expressions persist.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. On other occasions, I visit a tiny space where volunteers teach us arithmetic and Arabic. The lessons are short – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recall who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed learning could change the world.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, educational institutions and relatives. I grieved for my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I forfeited my beloved urban area, that southern city, which is merely debris now. But the toughest sacrifice of all is education, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the global audience, I express this: don’t let our dreams die. Compassion isn't enough, we want action. Young residents merit books, learning environments and safety. Education is not an extravagance, it is a basic right. This region is not just ruins; it is youth who persist in hoping amid unmanned aircraft at evening. It is my account and I will continue writing, even if all I have left is a broken pencil and a piece of torn paper.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

An educator, forty, teacher in al-Bureij camp

I have been instructing in Gaza for over ten years. First in a southern city, then in another location, and currently in the central camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I typically educated several sets of about 40 students each, almost two hundred forty individuals eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in life, and I still recollect the gleam in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My teaching space was a space of recreation, creativity, and activity. We painted maps, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.

Merriment always filled the room as curiosity replaced anxiety. Yes, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always afraid. My classroom was a protected zone but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My learning center became a safe haven for households escaping the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no learning institutions remaining intact in Gaza now. For two years, nothing has been normal. The war has destroyed every aspect of our lives: safety, homes, schools, dreams. Anxiety and sorrow are perpetual experiences.

Many of my students are now dead – minors who talked about aspiring to be physicians, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the entitlement to survival. Those who survive endure malnutrition, eviction and weariness – and however, they still maintain the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I receive messages from a handful of them. They write asking: “How are you, educator?” We exchange concise phrases, miniature instruction, minor flashes of interaction amid the disorder. They question if things will ever go back to normal. I inform them I don’t know.

Throughout the region, instructors, helpers and organizations endeavor education wherever possible: in temporary structures, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Learning has become an gesture of resistance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will remain.

A significant number of us are also caregivers. I am a parent of {three|several